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Comment

this is 3 typical hands i might play might not depending on the table and how im feeling,the qq push i pretty much new i was a head,the 85 was happy to play hoping some1 had ak and i would get lucky,and about the same with a5,i know not great starting hands but am confident to play any 2 any posisiton against any player thoughts please nothing to much just a general feeling please

Comment

the last 2 hands you shouldn't even considered unless you could have limped in but to raise preflop? i don't get what you were hoping to achieve there
The last hand with A5o when you called the re-raise preflop what was your plan as far as betting into an $1100 pot with only $1300 left / then on the turn you bet $700? / You were committed after the flop so the only options I see left is shove or fold
OK
The 1st hand QQ
I hate PP's / Pocket Pairs have few ways to improve and when you shove pre and find yourself against any other PP though the higher pair doesn't need to improve to win both hands have an equal chance to make a set.
That's it / nothing more
evil:

Comment

I think the immediate shove is a bit too large of a raise. I'd have raised to 600, then called a shove from them over it or re-evaluated after the flop. If you got to see the flop, you do have an overpair, but with 3 diamonds on the board, that's a scary flop for you.

You did get your chips in good here and got drawn out on, but especially if it's on the bubble, I'd want to try and out play someone after the flop. If I had 10BB or less... then I'm auto shoving it.

85 hand

8 5 off in mid position is an INSTANT MUCK preflop. It's one of the worst starting hands in hold'em, so get rid of it as soon as you can.

A5 hand

raising with it from the button is ok and you also could have limped, but if you get called or raised, you are behind in the hand preflop. When the BB 3-bets you and is called by another opp... muck it right then. You've got the worst of the 3 hands here basically every single time, so get out of the hand and save your chips for a hand when you are ahead.

Super-Moderator

6 Time Bracelet Winner

Comment

right guys about as usefull as a chocolate fire gaurd most of the comment thx for nothing and regardless of cards i read all the situations right and was sucked out agianst,i asked for a general thoughts not sarcastic comments, i play lose and tight depending on how i feel,or may mix it up completely,its a tournement and i want to win it get chipped up not be blinded out,i am on ere trying i emphasise trying to learn to be better,im in possitive poi on my 8 dollers and have managed to keep my bankroll mainly avoiding the tilt,so obviously improved,thx to the help of some,

In poker you will always find many players who don't mind being blunt and just telling you as they see it
This is even more prevalent on other sites where table chat moderator is an unknown subject
Thicken that skin and keep working on the tilt issue cause tilting can get the best of your game real fast
evil:

Comment

QQ is a good enough hand to attack a weak open raise with an all in off a 14BB stack.
This is especially true if you feel the opponent will not need to wake up with AA/KK to call.
If he will even call with AK, your stack is short enough to need a race, and you do not necessarily want to put yourself into a spot to make a mistake fold.

You got what you wanted here, he called as a 20% dog, but you lost.

That will happen roughly 1 time in 5, and there is no sense worrying about it.

Your efforts are better spent looking at your decisions to see if there might have been some action you took with contributed to the likelihood of a bad beat, not sweating when bad beats happen.

In this spot you did nothing to help encourage him to call, all you did was charge him max price if he wanted to make a dumb call. so you did nothing wrong here at all.

That is all you can do.

Sometimes bad luck happens.

Hand #2:

This hand is way too weak to open from MP for a raise unless you have very SPECIFIC read info on all your opponents left to act behind you.

You do not post in your hand that you had specific read info that would allow you to make this highly exploitative raise oop, so I must assume you did not have it.

Your later comments on this post, to wit:

right guys about as usefull as a chocolate fire gaurd most of the comment thx for nothing and regardless of cards i read all the situations right and was sucked out agianst,i asked for a general thoughts not sarcastic comments, i play lose and tight depending on how i feel,or may mix it up completely,its a tournement and i want to win it get chipped up not be blinded out,i am on ere trying i emphasise trying to learn to be better,im in possitive poi on my 8 dollers and have managed to keep my bankroll mainly avoiding the tilt,so obviously improved,thx to the help of some,

...are therefore totally un-founded. Reading a situation contains a lot of things BEYOND thinking "I have the best hand, I bet". Let's break it down...

PRE FLOP:

You raise in MP with an 85o, making it 80 to go.

First, if you are raising a lot of hands, and a hand this weak is part of your MP raise range, you really do NOT want to be raising this large.

If you are 3bet pre flop, you should be ready to release this hand, as a 3bet is going to be in the neighborhood of around 200 to 250 or so.

That is too much of your stack to risk on a cheese hand out of position, no matter WHAT your style.

A LAG style benefits from making SMALLER open raises, so that 3bets can be called more often by you (if they are made by opponents).

The smaller raise ensures that you get to the flop more often, where your goal is to use superior post flop skills to out play opponents.

So a LARGER 4BB open raise is totally at odds with a LAG style.

Next...

Are there times that you can and should do this; yes.

But a LOT of those times will be wrapped up in a true assessment of your skill level versus your opponents', their play patterns, your image, and many other things.

Simply raising "the 85 was happy to play hoping some1 had ak and i would get lucky" is reck-less poker, not situationally aggressive, THINKING poker.

To play thoughtful poker you mus not only consider the things that you WANT to see happen, but also things you may not LIKE to see.

A LAG style is fine, but in large part a LAG style takes even MORE rigourous thought processes and discipline than a Tight style; the tight palyer at least has the benefit of flopping pretty strong hands usually if he hits.

I'm sorry to break this to you Holdemace486, the subesquent actions by you in this hand do not really say to me you have a good enough handle yet on all the necessary LAG discipline ideas that it takes to be opening a hand like this form MP. While no one did re-raise you, you really need read info on the sorts of hands they may FLAT behind you on to even consider playing a hand like 85o oop.

If the entirety of your read "hopes" consist of getting way lucky and out flopping AK, when AK calls, you are NOT thinking deeply enough to play 85o with any sort of profit potential here.

FLOP:

You hit 2nd pair, on a J hi flop, with flush draw possibilities.

As the initial raiser, I see nothing wrong with your lead for half pot.

It is in your interests to bet here just in case your opponent is willing to fold draws which are likely to have added over card outs to your paired 8, or stronger 2nd pair type hands. He may not KNOW he has those extra over card outs, so if you make him think all he has is a 9 out draw, and get him to fold, that is good for you. Again though, betting out like that really means you must know the villain is tight enough to muck a 9 out draw, rather than chase.

When the villain MIN RAISED you though, you really should consider letting this go.

Playing LAG poker entails that you really do not want to put yourself at risk in marginal situations unless YOU are the aggressor.

Your mantra should be: "Raise more than Call/FOLD more than raise" or "Raise light/call tight".

The reason why this is true is that since you will be playing a lot of hands, you will be in a LOT of situations.

Even if you have just a small "leak" in each of those situations, the cumulative effect of playing a LOT of hands will tend to be thqat you bleed off chips at an inordinately fast rate.

Since you lead out on a pretty marginal hand here, in order to call a RAISE you really must ask yourself "what if I am wrong?"

In this spot, the answer to that is simple:

- If you are wrong, and you are not ahead, you are dawing to a maximum of 5 outs.

- You will have increased your investment off your start stack to about 19% of your chips.

- This means you will need to spikeone of your 5 potential outs on the NEXT CARD, since you simply cannot afford to bet, or call another bet, without going past a committment point.

If you have read info on the opponent, especially about how often he might bluff, or how tightly he might fold, that can possibly lead you to a decision to 3bet NOW, but a call simply leaves you card dependant. If you are going to play a lot of pots, you do not want to put MORE into the pot than you have to, the fold if you miss. so this is a 3bet or FOLD spot, and a 3bet is only good if you have a read that says the villain will raise you light, then fold to aggression.

If you had MORE OUTS, say you had 85s in spades, being card dependant for the small size of this call might not be BAD; you could probably risk a call here in that case.

...but you do not have that.

So in order to "read all situations right" here, you should also be reading that your loose style will give you OTHER CHANCES...as long as you do not bleed chips away.

Even as a LAG, this should be a fold (or a RAISE if you think you can get the villain to fold often enough). Anything else is far too risky...

TURN:

Ok, you hit one of your 5 potential outs. Another part of reading a situation is to be aware of a concept called "dirty outs".

Dirty outs are those which might improve you, but improve your opponent MORE.

In this spot, the 5 means at least 1 of the 5 max out you were drawing at could make someone a flush.

That card came.

Do you CHECK, to possibly control the pot with a call, in case you have the best hand now, but to protect yourself a bit if you don't?

No.

You lead out for 525, and now stick yourself quite HARD to this pot by raising your overall investment to 50% of your stack.

At that point you are NEVER folding (or you shouldn't). If this is the case, why not move all in?

To be truly situationally aware, you must recognize that your hand strength in hold em is ALWAYS a relative thing; relative to the absolute nut hand on the given board.

The nut hand on the turn here is A high flush.
Next come all the other flushes, and you are jsut on a re-draw to an 8 high flush.
Then comes the 67 for a made straight.
After that comes all the 4 possible SETS.
Then comes Any 2 pair with one of the pairs being a J.
Finally...we have YOUR 2 pair hand.

Are you really close enough to the nut hand to want to commit yourself here?

Honestly, that does depend a lot on what your opponent tends to do, and what your image might be...

As a LAG, part of the situational equity you have is that opponents tend to believe you have LESS than you do a lot of the times, especially when you hold a hand like this.

You simply must accept that fact to be truly situationally aware, and you need to act according to the dictates of that situational equity.

- If you were an extremely TIGHT player, and you held 85 here, chances are good you will not get the same ype of weak J calls as a LAG.

- This means that your thought process about how to extract maximum value would need to be DIFFERENT than for a LAG.

If you are not aware of those effects when you adopt a given style of play, then you are not truly situationally aware, and you cannot have "read the situation right" as you say. You can HOPE you are right, you can guess you are right, but you cannot know you are...see?

As played, your large bet is not really good, as it will tend to get called by less some of the time, but hands that are able to call will usually be drawing live against you.

Since part of your read of the situation MUST be a certain willingness to recognize that your opponent may call MORE in this spot, I'd be much more prone to try for a check/RAISE in this spot, especially for all my chips.

As played, you simply did not have enough of an image due to your LAG style to get him to fold a top pair hand.

This means if you are willing to lead bet half your start stack, you MUST be willing to get 'em all in if possible.

A SMALLER bet might get "attacked" by the opponent (since he raised your flop bet, right?), and that means you might then get the REST of your chips in if you think you hold the best. THAT is good for you, if you are on the best hand now!

If you are aware enough of threat potential from the possible straight, the smaller bet also makes it possible for you to lose LESS if he holds a better hand.

So in large part Holdemace486, you hung yourself on the turn by not being aware ENOUGH of the situation to see that the villain may have called MORE to draw at his kicker when you are ahead.

That means by not betting to extract max value from this situation (trying your best to get all your chips in if you read that you were ahead now), you led him to make a mistake, and after making that mistake he got lucky.

If you were so certain you were best that you jammed, and he called, THEN I'd agree you read the situation correctly.

As played though, a half pot bet on the turn would have been a lot better for you, although best of all would have been to muck on the flop after you got raised.

In truth, can you see that you might NOT have been seing all sides of the situation as clearly as possible?

Hand #3:

Same thing here.

A5 is fine to raise on the button over a limper really, but when the SB re-raises, you really cannot OVER CALL after the limper calls.

That is just weak. 4Bet your hand if the spot is right, or accept A5 is not strong enough to paly here and muck.

There is a BIG DIFFEENCE between a raise (or a bet) and a CALL.

Everything which happens after that is moot, and at best you can be said to have HOPES your bottom pair spike is good on the flop. Do not fall prey to the mis-conception that EVERY raise or re-raise is AK, as sometimes your opponents will be on much better hands...

I strongly suggest you look into "The Gap Concept in Poker" to find out why I say a bet or raise is not the same as a call.

These hands, EXCEPT the QQ hand, were examples of situations where you got really lucky on the flop, but the only reason you had a CHANCE to get lucky on the flop was because YOU made a mistake to still be there.

I'd also suggest that you ask yourself this:

'If it is ok for you to get lucky on the flop, is it really far fetched to think that an opponent might get lucky to make a BETTER hand on a later street...in essence isn't it possible he too might get lucky?"

You also should recognize that the more often you find yourself in situations like these, where you need a lucky flop to have a better hand (where you call in bad), the more often opponents will tend to think 1 pair hands are good enough AGAINST you. When they decide that, they stick around LONGER against you.

This is great for you if you have better than 1 pair hands, but it ALSO means that your opponents will tend to suck out more OFTEN.

If you are going to continue playing a LAG style, and if you hope to make that style profitable for you, you must come to terms with the adjustments you must make for the situations that YOUR play decisions create.

...and it will help to recognize that an extra helping of suck outs are all a part of opponents staying in too long to draw bad agaisnt you. Just don't let that CRUSH you when the suck outs happens.

Comment

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